Pick M3 MacBook Pro Instead of Steam Deck OLED： Here's Why

Hello, welcome back to a new video. So

I've been using this brand new M3 MacBook

Pro for a while now, and I was thinking if

you are thinking about getting a portable

gaming device, you might be looking at the

Steam Deck OLED. Well, I want to make a

video today talking about why I think this

is the superior handheld gaming device.

Now okay, the Steam Deck OLED is only

about $500 or $600, and this is about

$1,700, so obviously this is about $1,000

more expensive. But for the extra money,

you get a much more powerful machine

that's much more capable and just has a

much better form factor. Okay, so first of

all, when it comes to the weight and the

size of the 2 devices, they aren't really

that much different. So this is about 1.6

kg, and I think the Steam Deck OLED is

probably around 500 or 600 grams. So yes,

this is triple the weight of a Steam Deck

OLED, but when it comes to the shape of

the devices, the Steam Deck OLED is quite

a long device, so it's probably as long as

around this much. So it's only like 2 of

them stacked on top of each other. So in

comparison, there's not much of a

difference. The MacBook Pro M3 is quite

thin. It's quite a thin device. I would

even say this is thinner than a Steam Deck

OLED. But that doesn't really matter. The

shape of the devices aren't that

different. What really matters is when you

open up the MacBook, uh, look what you

get. You get this amazing display, Mini

LED, which goes up to about 1,000, 1,600

nits of brightness, which I believe is

superior to the Steam Deck OLED's OLED

screen. And you get a nice big 14-inch

screen, which compared to the tiny little

7-inch screen on the Steam Deck OLED,

there's no comparison when you're gaming.

Bigger screen is better. So obviously the

MacBook Pro's bigger screen wins. And then

you've got a full keyboard, probably one

of the best laptop keyboards there is.

You don't get a keyboard with the Steam

Deck OLED. If you want one, you have to

attach an external keyboard. And then

you're just adding to the weight and the

size, and the portability of the Steam

Deck OLED kind of goes down the toilet.

So you got this nice clamshell design,

easily slots into your backpack, you can

take this anywhere. So in terms of

portability, okay, maybe the Steam Deck

OLED is smaller technically, but it's not

smaller enough to make the MacBook Pro not

portable. This is a very portable device

and very versatile with a better screen,

bigger keyboard, and better speakers. So

when it comes to performance, I'm pretty

sure The M3 chip blows whatever chip the

Steam Deck OLED has out of the water. You

can just do some benchmark tests. I think

the Steam Deck OLED is using some kind of,

I don't know, integrated APU Nvidia

chip that's probably very rubbish and

nothing compared to this. This is so

powerful you can probably run anything on

it that's on the Steam Store. And actually

there's quite a lot of Mac games available

on the Steam Store. There's actually quite

a few AAA games on the MacBook Pro, and

you can get stuff like Lies of P,

Baldur's Gate 3, Civilization Civilization

VI. All of the Total War games are on

here, so if you love Total War strategy

games, then you can play those. We'll play

some later so I can show you. I like Total

War: Warhammer 2, that's my favorite. But

you've also got Total War: Rome and Total

War: Britannia. And you also get other

games like Resident Evil 4, and Resident

Evil Village is also available on Mac now.

And I think Death Stranding is coming soon

to Mac. So seems like a lot of developers

are changing their minds to porting their

games over to Mac, and I think in the

future there's just going to be more and

more games coming over to macOS, which

means if you've got a good powerful

MacBook, you will have a much bigger

gaming library in the future as it grows.

And I think this device is just so much

more powerful and versatile than a Steam

Deck OLED. So why would you buy a Steam

Deck OLED over this? Number one, it's

cheaper. Number two, it's lighter. But if

money is no problem, then you can just get

one of these. And not only can you game on

it, you can also actually do some real

work and productivity with it. Steam Deck

OLED for productivity, you can do it, I

guess, if you use Linux. Very limiting,

can't get a lot of programs on Linux, and

then you have to also add an external

keyboard and mouse, which adds to the size

of it. Okay, so here we have some Mac

games. I've got my Steam library opened up

here on my MacBook, and I sorted by macOS

games that run on Mac. I got Alien:

Isolation— wait, first of all, I'll show

you all my games. I've got all these

games. And on MacBook,

about a third of them are available on

Mac. I can't plug in my microphone right

now because I had to use my USB adapter to

plug in the mouse. If you can see, that's

my USB-C adapter. Unfortunately, the

MacBook doesn't have a USB port, it's only

got 2 USB-C ports, which I need a

USB port for my mic as well as my mouse.

So anyway, I've got Counter-Strike 2, I

might launch that and play some of that.

I've got Cult of the Lamb, I've got Monkey

Island, I've got Darkest Dungeon, Euro

Truck Simulator, Europa Universalis,

Frostpunk, Hollow Knight, Total War

Empire. Total War Warhammer 2 runs pretty

well on it as well, I played some of that.

So yeah, you got these games, they're a

bit older, so they're like 2017 or '18 or

'15, but you do get games on this. And you

can go to this, the Steam store, and

filter by macOS. There's quite a lot of

games available there. So I think we'll

try to play some Counter-Strike. I'll show

you how the gameplay works. So we finally

got Counter-Strike loaded up. It's not

Counter-Strike 2, for some reason it opens

up Counter-Strike original, but anyway,

it's a game that I can show you. And yeah,

it runs perfectly fine. I've got 80 FPS

if you can see the top left corner, and

the game looks okay. I mean, it looks fine

and it plays really smoothly. The mouse

feels a bit weird though, it's like really

slow. Okay, that's better. Anyway, so

yeah, we do some gameplay and, um,

feels really nice having the big screen

and the keyboard and mouse.

How'd you do melee?

It wouldn't let me just jump into a match,

just like forcing me to do tutorial.

But yeah, this game works completely fine.

I'll show you a different game next.

Okay, so here we have Total War: Warhammer

2, and this actually plays pretty well. I

can usually get about 30 to 40 FPS.

If I fiddle with the settings, but it

plays perfectly well. This actually used

to be one of my favorite games. I used to

play it quite a lot, so you can imagine my

pleasant surprise when I found out I can

play on MacBook, because it would be kind

of annoying buying this expensive MacBook

and then you can't even game on it.

So when it finally finishes loading We'll

jump into a battle. Okay, so what's

happening? I am Emperor Karl Franz,

and we got some orcs— orc army over here.

Got 40 FPS on the world map.

Oh wait, I need to finish my, my turn

first. And if you

can hear, I don't think the fans are

booting up. It is getting

quite hot. I can hear the fans starting to

come on now. Yeah, the fans are starting,

but it's not too noisy compared to a

Windows laptop.

So we got the orcs moving in for a

confrontation. I don't have a very strong

army. I built a load of pistoliers on

horseback and they're kind of rubbish.

They barely do any damage. They run out of

bullets really quickly.

Should have just got some archers.

Okay, so we got the battlefield. You can

hear the fan. So imagine trying to play

this game on Steam Deck. It would be

terrible. The only good thing about

pistoliers is you can place them further

ahead on the map, and then you've got your

main army here to start the battle. And

then I just grab my main army, march them

all into the enemy army, and then you want

to like skirmish around the edges with the

pistoliers. They can be quite good for

attacking enemy artillery.

Bunch of orcs coming in. My men are gonna

get destroyed. Why is the leader charging

out in front?

We got a bunch of swordsmen, shieldmen,

spearmen. Don't have any good units.

Use the pistoliers to harass the siege.

The goblins.

Sound is also pretty good.

We got 40 FPS.

Your warriors tire, mighty lord. Their

exertions dull their ability to fight.

Give them time to rest. We got the main

army plowing into

those orcs. Getting flanked here. Where's

Karl Franz? Oh, he's nearly dead. I better

keep him at the back. So all

the men engaged.

This game's actually

pretty fun. I had an army once, had an orc

army, and I maxed out the orc leader, and

he could literally solo hundreds of enemy

men just on his own with his like AOE

attack. Why are

they just standing there doing nothing?

Attack the siege engines! Why are they

just standing there?

They're not very good, are they? Look how

long they take to just take out one unit

of catapults.

What are they doing up here? Maybe Franz

can help these guys out.

Yeah, we're dead. These guys are toast.

Sorry about that, my bad leadership

skills. They finally nearly

killed one Goblin Rock Lobber group.

Yeah, so you can totally game on this

MacBook. You just gotta make sure other

tabs are closed because you only got 8GB

of RAM and it does get a bit slow if

you're using like 8GB swap. I had, um,

Windows— I mean Safari tabs open,

Discord and stuff, and I was using about

15GB of RAM total. So I used all the

physical RAM, 7GB, and about 8GB of swap.

And the game actually crashed a couple

Yeah, my men are all rooting or routing.

So I can totally see this as like a

portable gaming device that's better

than the Steam Deck.